As of this month, I’ve now been a marketing consultant/agency leader for 25 years. It’s weird. Some days, I look back on that as if it were the blink of an eye. Other times, I look back and feel like I’ve run the 100-meter dash 50,000 times…
Most of you who read this are here for our unique perspective at the intersection of professional services and thought leadership. But that hasn’t always been the focus.
In fact, I often like to describe myself as a “recovering brand consultant.” When I started, we were focused on branding. We worked with a wide range of companies on brand strategy and identity. We helped them think about…
- What they wanted to be known for
- The feeling they wanted customers to have about them
- The tone-of-voice of their marketing and advertising programs
- The look-and-feel of those same programs
We helped companies find ways to stand out. Look different. And be memorable.
In those first ten years, marketing was primarily about telling a firm’s story. We worked tirelessly to get every message exactly right. To ensure every touchpoint had a consistent look. And to package it all in a visually distinct way.
Content Consumes Brand Marketing
But the Internet had a different idea. Marketing changed radically in the late 2000’s. This was largely the result of two converging trends:
-
Publishing became ubiquitous and free.
Prior to the development of self-publishing tools like WordPress, producing marketing and thought leadership content was slow and expensive. If you were self-publishing, you might have to write it, design it, print it, and mail it to reach anyone who might read it. Every piece of thought leadership was like a beautiful gift, practically hand-delivered to the reader. But WordPress changed all that. Suddenly, just about anyone with an Internet connection could share their thoughts with the world instantly. It was easy. And it was cheap.
-
You could find a needle in a haystack.
Prior to Google, finding anything was incredibly expensive and painful. We consulted research librarians. We queried their expensive and gated databases. We phoned a friend. Finding the answer to any pressing business problem literally required an HBR subscription, a lot of trusted advisors, and weeks of work. And Google changed all that. Suddenly, you could find an answer to just about any question you might have. Anywhere you were. Anytime you wanted.
These two trends ushered in the content marketing era (I literally gave a webinar on this in 2012, explaining how it all fit together). For the first time ever, clients didn’t necessarily need to know who you were to find your firm. They could “stumble upon” your firm through the content you produced. That process of discovery spawned its own economy under the 3-letter phrase SEO.
Marketing budgets shifted accordingly. Those large brand marketing programs were deprioritized. They were replaced by content programs, white papers, ebooks, and blogs, which eventually gave way to webinars, videos, podcasts, and the like.
Prospects used Google to search for solutions to their problems. They found those answers in your content. And a portion of them became your clients. We spawned new frameworks, new ideas, and new language for marketing. Funnels. Inbound. SQLs. MQLs…
AI Consumes Content Marketing
We’ve now entered a whole new era. Shaped by new client behavior enabled by generative AI chat tools and search experiences. Google collapsed months or weeks’ worth of search and discovery into days. AI-enabled Google has collapsed those days of search and discovery into minutes or seconds.
Your new AI-enabled buyers no longer “stumble upon” answers to their problems on your site. They “generate” answers to their problems directly within the “walled garden” that is Google Gemini, Perplexity, or ChatGPT.
Like the one before it, this new one will usher in new marketing approaches. In fact, I believe it requires you to rethink a few key things. To thrive in the AI era, firms need to:
-
Show up in the walled garden.
You can’t assume the old SEO playbook, chock full of keywords, metadata, site speed, and domain authority, will continue to work. You’ll need to adopt new GEO methods to win AI search that involve original primary research, third-party publishing, and “to-the-point” content.
-
Give clients a reason to seek YOU.
If you can no longer rely on clients “stumbling upon” you, then you need to give them a reason to search specifically for you. This will require investing back in your brand. A brand renaissance.
The Brand Renaissance Looks Like…
But let me be clear, this new “brand era” isn’t going to look like the last one. We’re not going back to copious brand guidelines, elevator pitches, and big splashy ad campaigns (at least I hope not).
Building a brand in the AI era will be about a few very fundamental things:
-
Having a distinct POV.
Yes, AI can generate an answer based on the conventional wisdom of the crowd. But that doesn’t mean it generates the right one. Clients still clamor for insights into better ways to solve their unique business problems. Firms with a strong worldview and the ability to discern signals from noise will thrive.
-
Investing in longitudinal research.
One of the best ways to get your firm known is to establish a recurring research program. The Martech Landscape, the Tercera 30, the Middle Market Indicator, the Edelman Trust Barometer, the Future 50, the State of the Global Workforce. Research programs like these, released on a regular cadence, function sort of like Spotify Wrapped. They serve as flashpoints for prospects and clients alike, giving them something to look forward to and talk about.
-
Building your brand personality.
Yes, firms still need guardrails on what they say (i.e., thought leadership strategy). But they need to loosen the reins on how they say it (i.e., their tone-of-voice). The CB Insights Newsletter, Dev Patnaik’s Future Focus newsletter, the Compound & Friends podcast. These are great examples of firms that have “let their hair down,” so to speak, and are offering marketing that’s both educational and entertaining.
This is an exciting and fun time for marketers. Chock full of new ways of working and new ways of thinking. If we can help you on your 2026 journey, give me a shout.
